On the edge of the hollow

When the cold rain is coming down at night South Vine Street appears almost exotic.

The orange street lamps cast a golden glow on the brick. The downspouts gush as they drain the flat roofs of Whiskey Chute. With a bit of imagination those street lights could be gas lamps on the ancient streets of London and a horse could be pulling a carriage into the night.

And it could be London's Whitechapel district and inside could be Jack the Ripper.

But it's only someone leaving the pub.

The rain cuts in December leaving the fingers nearly too numb to type. The air moves with horizontal raindrops made golden by the street lights.

The chaos of Christmas is over. Did we do what we were supposed to do? Are the children satisfied? Do they still think they were good this year?

These are the questions that make me want to go get lost in the woods for a while, free to roam, room to breathe.

A week ago Sunday I returned to the Beech Hollow overlook for the first time this year. The view, as ever, was amazing. Williams Hill loomed to the south.

Buzzard down clung to the bare branches of the dwarfed trees and buzzard dung splashed the sandstone bluff. These are the signs of a good spot to sit and ponder. But the visit was not calming. High winds rocked me and the 15-year-old who was much too close to the edge for comfort.

Growing up I resented my elders who would not let me get close to the edge. I only wanted to get a better view. I wasn't trying to show off. Now when I see kids close to the edge my heart leaps into my throat.

Maybe its from writing about so many falls off the Garden of the Gods. People are not invincible. Well, I am, but very few other people are.

See, kids fall down an awful lot in the woods. They trip on a boulder obscured by the leaves walking down into the hollow. They step in hidden sinkholes that throw them off balance. When a person sees others fall enough times, he can't remain calm seeing them inches from the edge of the bluff.

Is this a sign of maturity, pessimism or caution grounded firmly in reality?

I urged we leave after five minutes claiming the wind was "getting to me." I was proud to see the young man return to the bluff to take a photo of the view with his camera phone. He had made a connection with our woods. There was a sort of light in his face that I had not seen before.

There are mysteries out in the rolling hollows and hills captured in that photograph. Down below is Polly Yewell Spring, formerly the home of Polly Yewell, daughter of Simon Womble, namesake of Womble Mountain. Imagine what it was like to live there in the floor of Beech Hollow, no neighbors in sight. There was plenty of water, but how would she have fed herself? Did she and her family become lonesome or did they feel privileged to be there?

Probably a little of both.

It is a land of hardscrabble existence, farming on soils barely able to grow cedars. Every once in a while a person finds evidence of moonshining with a piece of copper tubing oxidized to an eerie green. There are more ancient relics of arrowheads. There are caves to disappear in for a while.

There are more mysteries to find and not nearly enough time to find them.